23rd

Our genes determine our ability to absorb experience; our experiences activate genes in different sequences and for differing lengths of time, altering our form further. Where’s the free will?

Studies of brain activity show that our actions occur a few milliseconds before the cognitive centres light up and produce a reason for our actions. Are we really conscious at all?

Are our lives just the emergent behaviour of the interactions of our genes with our environment? Is our free will an illusion, no more free than a drop of water is free to choose the random path it takes down a windshield—unpredictable, but with an inevitable result?